1. Field
The present invention relates to articles and methods of manufacture in the semiconductor field, and, more particularly, to composites, devices, passive elements, and packages as well as their methods of manufacture.
2. Description of Related Information
Many integrated circuits (“ICs”), particularly in the radio frequency field, include passive circuit elements having the drawback that they occupy excessive surface area of the circuit die. Existing high performance articles (passive circuit elements, devices, ICs, packages, etc.) and methods of making such articles generally do not take into account certain important aspects related to reducing the footprint of these elements. They are unable to implement fabrication and placement techniques that provide passive devices such as inductors, capacitors, and resistors having both high density and optimum operating parameters.
For example, many existing articles and related methods sometimes include inductive elements comprised of wiring layers disposed on an upper layer of a semiconductor substrate. These articles and their associated methods typically implement the inductive elements by means of thick or otherwise expensive films that may also operate inefficiently. Existing articles and methods may also require restricted placement of the inductive elements based on the effects of the current flow within the conductive traces and/or other electromagnetic issues such as interference with the substrate or neighboring structures. Additional drawbacks of these inductive elements include substrate loss, inefficient use of die surface area, and lower density stemming from undesired structural features such as (large) isolation regions, overly thick dielectric layers, etc.
Other existing articles and methods of fabrication are directed to capacitive elements such as metal-insulator-metal (“MIM”) capacitors capable of effective operation in some radio frequency applications. However, such elements generally occupy significant surface area and have poor scalability. Accordingly, these existing devices and their fabrication techniques provide ICs with excessive die sizes and high costs.
Furthermore, still other existing articles and methods relate to passive elements, particularly resistors and inductors, including conductive regions having wide traces subject to drawbacks such as high resistance and undesired skin effects. These articles and methods often also fail to achieve other well known objectives associated with such traces, such as the desirability of placing passive elements as close as possible to other circuits/elements, on the IC and/or in packages and articles.
In sum, there is a need for articles and methods that may implement passive circuit elements characterized by high density as well as optimum placement and operation on a substrate, such as, for example, compact inductors, capacitors and resistors of very small form factor, good Q-factor, and/or high self-resonance frequency.